


Walk By Faith

by orphan_account



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artist Gerard Way, Early Work, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Interviews, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24582367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "This week on DC Online, an exclusive interview: Celebrated comic author Gerard Way goes into detail about his past pursuits, creative inspirations, and how it relates back to the tragic loss of his brother in 2006.”Or: in a universe where Mikey didn't make it past Black Parade, Gerard heals.
Relationships: Frank Iero & Ray Toro & Gerard Way & Mikey Way, Gerard Way & Mikey Way, mentioned Gerard Way/Original Female Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Walk By Faith

**Author's Note:**

> i was going through my documents that've hopped with me through every computer & device i've had since i was a teenager, and found this buried there, which i apparently wrote first in _2013_. before the incident, i believe, but s t i l l.  
> decided it was okay enough to post it; though, i haven't re-edited it for anything more than coherence. and even then,, barely. again, i am so sorry  
> please mind the tags! step lightly if needed.
> 
> thank you for reading, and be well~

**_During_ **

It hurt.

It hurt like losing one of his limbs. It hurt like waking up one morning only to find his leg below the knee had been hacked off and had left behind an uneven stump that everyone else had sympathy for but couldn't help. It hurt like waking up one morning with a hacked-off leg and then having to walk around all day, to do work and eat food and talk to friends and therapists and his grieving parents, while keeping one hand on the wound and try not to fall down or into walls, do all this useless shit when his main problem was _surviving_ with something so inherent to him gone _,_ and there was blood everywhere. And then watching gangrene set in.

Mikey was _dead._

It hurt so badly there were long days where he could do nothing except lay in his bed alone. He had dreams about zombies all over the world clawing free from their graves, and they were _happy_ dreams because he wasn't the only one fucked up in them, it was everyone, everyone in the world felt what was inherently wrong with their realty, but there was nothing to be done.  
And then Gerard would wake up from these happy apocalypse dreams, and he would remember, and be able to do nothing except roll onto his side and push his head under the pillow as another wave of pain came.  
The tiniest mercy: it was his bed he was lying on, in his house, not one of the godforsaken mansion's any longer. The label had evacuated him and the rest of the guys out of there double-time almost as soon as they'd told him about Mikey. The others were in their own apartments or long-term hotel rooms. Gerard knew, somewhere in his grey matter, their numbers, but he never called them. It would be too hard to hear their voices and their own pain.  
He knows that his bandmates are in pain too, and he knows that Kathy is being hurt both by Mikey being gone (she'd been practically his sister-in-law, after all) and by Gerard ignoring her like this; let alone Alicia, and his parents, but he can't bring himself to think about them.

He can’t stop feeling that they didn't love Mikey like he did.

It's a terrible, terrible thing to feel, and of course he would never say it out loud, so he keeps his useless voice shut off and avoids everyone. It wasn't that Gerard thought he'd never be happy again. He had no memory what happiness meant _,_ all of it too close to Mikey to process. His brother was gone _._

It hurt. God, it hurt.

This went on for a long, long time.

  
*

**_After_ **

[Now press play.]

[The camera taking the footage is set on a sunlit porch, varnished and well-kept, curving around the sides of a modest house. Gerard Way sits in a wicker outdoor chair, long brown hair shoved under a beanie, looking comfortable. A small wicker table by his elbow has a thin glass ashtray. The interviewer speaks from off-frame.]

_-_ _Okay, we’re recording._ _Mr. Way, thanks so much for accepting_ _our interview request_ _._  
  
Hello, thanks for interviewing me. [laughs] Mr. Way makes me sound like a principal or something.  
  
- _[_ _Al_ _so laughs] Well, can I call you Gerard?_

Yes you can.

_-Thank you. Now, we're, ah, we're sitting on a porch right now, in lovely weather._

We are! It's beautiful today.  
  
_-Absolutely. It’s, uh, January 30_ _th_ _2015,_ _one p.m.,_ _nice and balmy in Los Angeles._  
  
A little windy.  
  
_-_ _A_ _little windy, that’s true. Thankfully most of it’s blocked by the sides of the house. And how are you?_

Well, I'm a bit anxious about this interview, if I'll tell you the truth. Mind if I smoke?  
  
_-Oh no! I mean, of course, smoke all you want. Is it because of me?_

[Way laughs] No, just, talking about this always makes me sort of, you know? It's a bit hard to talk about. [He lights a cigarette.]

_-I won't draw it out then. And we can start with the easy stuff._

Of course.

_-When did you first become interested in comics?_

[Fast-forward.]

[Pause. Gerard is mid-gesture, expression tight and upset.  
Press play.]  
  


I saw the ambulance outside the apartment. At first I thought there'd been some kind of break-in. I… [He wipes his face sharply] Look, I need to--  
  
_-Of course, no pro-_

[Video blacks out]

[Video resumes. Same framing. Way now holding a water bottle and putting down a small package of tissues.]

_-Can I ask—we’ll edit this out, of course, but can I ask why now? After you've been quiet for so long?_

[Short pause.]

You know the stages of grief? You can leave this in. Denial, anger, depression, all that? I was never angry with him for doing it. The way people were talking around me was all, why would he do that? But, you might know... in, like, the 2000`s to 2004 I was on a lot of drugs for depression, and then just to be on drugs. There were two times that I definitely wanted to kill myself, back then, and I think that you can grow out of that sort of mindset and you can move past it, but you never really forget it. Or I didn't forget it, at least.  
In the months after Mikey died... I was angry with myself for not having recognized the warning signs, and I was angry with the organizers of the support group he went to for doing— there’s exercises, in therapy, where you, uh. Where you plan your own funerals--  
  
_-Wow, that’s--_  
  
[Crosstalk] _-_ so I was angry at people for that, and I was pissed off with the police for getting there so slowly... [Takes a drag of cigarette] Which is totally nonsensical, I understand that now; it wasn't their fault by any means and they came as fast as they could. But at the time.

_-... you weren't really thinking like that._

Exactly. Not at all. I was a mess, honestly, for the first... for a long time afterwards. A total mess. I was angry at all these people, but not him. I never wondered _why_ he'd done it. I had been suicidal and depressed, way back in 2004 and earlier, I’d been drinking a lot-- had felt like I was totally isolated, desperate; like there'd be no way out except removing yourself. I remembered why.

  
_-Did that make it easier?_

No.

  
[Awkward pause] _  
_

[Way smokes, then starts talking again.] One of the more surreal parts, afterwards, was when we were having a band-and-everyone-else kind of meeting and someone, I think it was Frank, said we'd have to tell the kids. He was right, of course.

_-By the kids you mean the fans._

Yeah. And, like I said, he was right, we couldn't just not say anything to them. But I couldn't even do it, I couldn't... it had only been two weeks, I was barely functioning, really. I wasn't creating anything, I could barely think. I was in so far in stasis I couldn't see any sunlight. And of course, the other guys were in pretty rough shape too; when Mikey had been out of the mansion, it was more than the band missing our bassist, it was like all of us missing a limb.Mikey had kind of been everyone's kid brother, you know, but he'd also been the one who would like, talk to people and keep things moderately civil a lot of the time.

He used, [Way has a tiny smile on his face] he used to call himself the “spiritual advisor” of our band. And he was, in a lot of ways.

[Way shakes his head, dropping the smile.]

_  
-You- the band- did release a statement and a publicly accessible blog entry, on the band's official site._

  
We did, yeah. The official statement was, uh. PR, really. Ray did the blog. We set it up as an accident-- not the writing I mean, but Mikey, um, being gone. Some kind of fluke with a clot in his lungs, no one's fault, no one could have known, that sort of thing. It seemed like the only thing we could do. Ray's amazing, of course, and- exceptionally kind to people, and the way he phrased the whole thing was kind of inspiring, which was important... our kids were kind of, of delicate at the time. They had a habit of being that way, I mean, they just feel and do everything with their whole heart, and I really think that's inspiring, I learn a lot from them. They're all so brave.

  
[Brief pause. Way smokes.]

We decided not to lay it out because it was personal. It came up later, obviously, and we really did-- and I _do_ \-- put a lot of importance on being honest, but there’s shit that’s not for discussion, you know? We decided to wait and stall it as much as we could, just because it _was_ so personal. And because our, we had a PR woman at the time, she was lovely, her name was Stacy Ligman-- she said that kids have a different way of coping with loss than adults do, and hearing of Mikey might set off a... chain reaction. And most, well not _most,_ but a lot of our fans were so young.  
  
_-That must have been hard to hear._  
  
[Way nods.] _God._ It was. I was pretty fuckin’ near hysterical all the time at the time. In the meeting where we discussed it, I don't even think she'd finished talking before I was saying [He waves his cigarette-holding hand expressively] 'of course, of course, never, go on with it' and that kind of thing.  
I'm, something about me is that I’m empathetic to a fault sometimes, and I was so deep in it then. My brother... I couldn't even think of more people going like that. Especially not the kids. I couldn't think of it. I still can't.  
[Way looks back but not at the camera, instead, off in the distance somewhere. He smokes for a few moments without speaking.]  
We should get back on record now.

 _  
-Right, of course. So, uh, back on record. Are you still in contact with them? Your old bandmates, from My Chem?_  
  
Oh yeah, totally. They're great guys. They were my brothers, too. They are. The most difficult part of... [Way pauses, then smiles somewhat bitterly] The most difficult part of all of it was leaving them, I think.

_-By 'it', you mean..._

The band ending. [Way drinks some water.] I really didn't give a fuck about how the media wanted to spin on it, or the compensation the label wanted, or any of it. Except maybe letting down all the kids. But letting the band die just because I didn't have enough of myself to sing was horrible. I mean, the guys cared too, all of them took it really hard. But I was the only one basically went completely to pieces. And the guys' had all worked pretty much their whole lives for a chance to be like we were going to be. They'd been working their absolute asses off for months, in that house, that I'd thought of, and everyone was exhausted, but we'd all been saying to ourselves, you know, _if we could just finish it'd be worth it_ , _if we just finish_... and then we didn't finish. I was failing them; that's how I thought of it, just one more thing that was... was my fault. And I'd never wanted that. I never wanted that.

  
[The recording jumps.]

  
_\- --got better. They're doing well now, I mean._

Yeah, they did. Of course they did. [Laughs, warmly] They're really great.

 _-I heard Ray Toro has his own custom guitar shop no_ _w?_

Yeah! He goes on tour with some of the people who buy from him, too, sometimes, his music’s incredible. He's also giving lessons at a rec centre when he's not on the road, just to random kids who sign up and have no idea 'til they get there that the lessons are from a rockstar. The man doesn't charge much or anything, though God knows he could. [Shakes his head] If only he'd use his powers for evil.

 _-[_ _L_ _aughs.] So, uh, what about the other guys? Frank Iero, Bob Bryar?_

[Way exhales smoke off to the side, ashing cigarette]  
Well, Frank's in Jersy with his family. He’s splitting his time between this crazy punk clothing line he's got running, and Leathermouth which is his post-hardcore band that's probably the best stuff out of the genre I've heard in years--- and along with both of those he's also busy being a dad. Which is great, him and his wife were totally thrilled when they found out... that was almost a year ago.  
Uh, Bob's down in the South now, I think he does mostly sound gigs although he still drums. He's actually published a few children's books-- he used to talk about doing that when the band ended, it was kind of funny, but they really are adorable stories. He's doing well.

_-Cool, cool. And, uh, to get back on the topic a little--_

[Way laughs.]

_-You've been pretty busy yourself the last few years, even beside the comic books. Starting in 2010 you produced a series of multimedia art shows. Can we talk about them?_

[Resettling in his chair.] Yeah, sure. They helped me deal with... everything. I had to start _creating_ things again, I really felt that strongly—and, I mean, other stuff happened in the mean time.

After the band ended it was just a really dark period for me. There was two weeks where I basically just didn’t leave my bed. I was upset, obviously, mourning, just super super depressed, and chemically depressed. Thank god for Stacy, she’d stayed in contact with me, and-- it took a while but she and the MCR guys talked me into going to find a doctor. To deal with the aftermath, obviously, but also to deal with what was a lot, uh, more long-standing issue of my mental health.  
So I did that, and I’m still in the process of managing it, but that helped a lot. Once I was on medication— a good medication for me, in managed doses, and going to therapists and everything--once all of that started happening, it made it a little easier to breath and I started wanting to do stuff again.  
  
_-What made you pick art?_  
  
Well, I always kind of did art. Music— music is what I first think of when I get up in the morning, you know? It’s running through my head the whole day, it’s how I think. But at the time I couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t. Art though, I’ve been doing art since I was a little _kid,_ y’know, and that was much more manageable.  
  
_-Do you think you’ll ever make music again?_  
  
[Way pauses.] I really don’t know.

  
_  
-Okay. So, tell us more about how the show’s started, please._  
  
Yeah, absolutely. Once I got, um, once I got some function back I just started creating whatever I could. I’d moved back into my parents’ house at the time, in New Jersey, they were very supportive of me—and they were grieving too, of course, but it was good to be in that kind of supportive environment. I started just drawing and then, uh, then it went on from there. Eventually I had built up enough that my dad suggested I start compiling it for a show. Very few of those pieces actually made it out of the house, of course, they were all very... very personal. But eventually I did make enough to put together an exhibit.  
  


_-The first public show was about your brother._  
  
[Way smiles, strained. He smokes.] Yeah. Ah, halfway through 2008, I'd rebooted enough to start actually doing functional human things again. I could hug my mom, and see my girlfriend--  
  
_–_ _[Jokingly]_ _Who’s n_ _ow your wife?_  
  
[Way grins] Yes, happily- I could see her without thinking of how my brother never got to marry anyone and wouldn't... yeah. [Shakes his head] But, the art shows, how they came around was basically, um. It was after I had moved into a condo in Jersey with my girlfriend, now my wife. So we had moved in together. And one morning I just started asking everyone I had cellphone access to about what they remembered about Mikey.

  
_-Why then?_

I forgot his favourite kind of jam. [Laughs shortly; passes a hand over his face] It was such a stupid thing, but I was so terrified of forgetting him. I'd never thought of it like that then- I mean, I didn't ever consciously think 'I'm scared of forgetting him', even in therapy, although I’d stopped going to that for a while, back then, because I'd just assumed that I’d gotten better enough and I had started to always relate it right back to Mikey again and think maybe I pushed him too hard, or... but I still think I had been for a long time. Scared.  
I was making myself toast, I remember, and coffee, and I was just like--- it was just a moment of me being like, 'oh if Mikey was still here with me he’d have toast with-' and then nothing coming. I'd done that a lot, in those days; think of things that Mikey would do if he were there with me. And I almost lost it a little when I couldn't, like, access that one memory, I started freaking out, aggrandizing, like what if I forgot everything about him slowly and I didn't even notice?

I sort of went on like that, just building up my own steam and all, and then my wife came downstairs and noticed me freaking out and I basically just, [Huffs a laugh] whined to her of all this, this gross emotional gunk that had kind of, [Gestures to his throat, making a 'vomit' pantomime] came up. And she gave me some advice-- she just sat down at our table and said straight-up, you're scared of losing your memories of him.  
And, I mean, as I've said I didn't think of it like that at the time but I knew she was right right away, so I was just like... oh.  
And Kathy, she just told me, So draw some. Or write some down. You'll remember that way.  
And it was like, a sunlight-coming-in-through-the-window kind of moment, for me. It just made so much sense. And I did, I started just spewing out all these little things I remembered onto scraps of paper. Later those turned into paintings, and I decided somewhere along the way to start gathering other peoples'.

 _-Including_ _the_ _fans._

Right, fans and family and friends and the guys; any little art piece that was about him. The ones from friends, family, the guys, I gathered them myself. I did hire an temporary intern to sift through the ones from the fans, though. There were so many of them-- and this was like, a year, two years after we played our last live show. It was amazing, really. They’re still amazing. I’m… we were incredibly blessed to have all of them.  
  
_-Your record label also released a bio DVD documentary of the band, in that time._

They did, they did. 'Life On The Murder Scene'. [Way smokes.] Looking back on that is like... I can't even describe it. But anyway, I really wasn't expecting the amount of like, compassion and emotion that it seemed was still out there, for My Chem, and Mikey in particular. A lot of the fan art was of him onstage, of course. It was totally heartening to think that like, even when I felt like I'd kinda failed with the band, we'd still impacted so many of these young people's lives. It was humbling, in a way. [Way nods to himself, eyes unfocused for a second.]

_-In the public exhibitions, especially the later ones, not all of the art work was especially flattering. Could you talk about that? Why you made it that way?_

  
Oh that came from an old book, actually. There's this old sci-fi novel, one of the first really famous ones, I read it in middle school, called “Ender's Game”. It’s a wonderful book, even though the author’s just not a good person. But, um, in it there's a thing where, it's called 'speaker for the dead', where basically someone stands up at a funeral and tells the deceased's story without embellishing any of the bad parts but also not skipping out on the kind things that the person had done. And that idea had really stuck with me since I'd read it, and Mikey had really liked the book too.  
Of course at his actual funeral I couldn't have done that, and had anyone tried I probably would have just been violent toward them, because at that time there'd still just been way too much pain. I was real violent, back then, not usually physically but almost all towards myself. It wasn’t good. [Way wipes his hair back] But with the art shows and how it took to reach the point where I could put them together, it was a little bit less raw. And I've always felt that with art, it's just incredibly important to be honest.

[Takes a drag on his cigarette] Mikey was one of the most important and inspirational people to me in the whole world. I remembered-- I still do remember--- when he was a baby, and then right up to when he left the mansion and was having so much trouble…  
He was worth remembering entire. His life was worth remembering in as much completeness as was possible. Including the bad shit, because that was part of his _life_ , that was what made him him as much as any of his good traits, same as any of us.

It was still hard, of course, because I felt like I should be protecting him as much as I could, protect his memory from all this stuff people were saying and writing about and [Gestures vaguely].

But as long as the stuff they were creating was _true,_ then it was right, in that way.

So, it was really hard, and for a long time it seemed to do exactly the opposite of what I meant it to, and it was like I'd regressed right back to just after it had happened, in 2006-- I was really angry and desperate all the time, producing this show, no matter who I was around; my relationship suffered... and then it kind of got better again. I could walk through the, this hermetically sealed storage locker where we were keeping most of the artwork before we put it up anywhere, and I could look at all this art about my brother and remember him. Instead of… of only missing him.  
  
_-That makes sense._

  
[Twisted smile] Does it? Well, good.  
[Way picks up the bottle of water and twists around to drink it, for about thirty seconds.]

  
_-Uh. We can take a break, if you need...?_  
  


Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna stop for a bit.

[A rattle, then the footage blacks out.]

[Video resumes. Same framing.]

I feel like I should tell you now, my assistant's going to accost you before you leave about the whole, [Way waves packet of kleenex in the air]. She might need you to delete some of your footage.

_-Just some?_

Well, yeah. [Way laughs, without much humour.] I know it's your job, I'm not going to make this a complete waste of you time. I'm not that much of an asshole.

_-Well, I'm glad to hear that. To, uh, get back to my job then: Two years ago now, you had a baby._

[Way gives a small smile.] Kathy had her, not me; she's the one who did all the work. I just sort of stood there feeling useless. [Laughs.] Yeah, I, we have a little girl now. Growing as fast as anything-- she's started to run all over the place and talk in full sentences, it's mind-boggling.  
[Way drinks from a glass of iced coffee that’s appeared in the frame during the last break.]

_-Do you think being a father has changed the way you think about things?_

About things as in art?

_-Yes._

Absolutely. [Way sets down the coffee.] It's kind of hard to explain, but, ah, you just get a totally renewed sense of wonder, because to her the whole world's totally new. And it's funny when she's a baby and like, laughs at her own toes, but then she gets a little older and starts pointing out birds and asking all these questions and remembering their names, and like, tugging you to the window to show you a woodpecker that's outside. And it's just such a completely joyful thing to watch her face just light up about this bird, or new colour, or a song for the first time, or whatever it is. There's a tangible, like, ‘ _joi de vivre’_ in it and I think I totally pull that into my work.

_-Your second show, in New York, almost all of the material was more on abstract concepts of family, and particularly children, as-- as understood by a parent._

It was! I really, um. It was in the Agora gallery, in… it must have been early 2011. That one was infinitely easier to make, to be honest, and a lot more full of joy. They were both really labour-intensive, both of the shows I mean, but the first one was just a miserable, miserable undertaking. And it had to be, you know? There was no way it could've been anything else. I'm still proud of that show, it's not that I'm denouncing it; but I had this idea-- _obsession,_ really, at the time--

_-Perfectly understandable._

[Crosstalk] -- that everything had to be perfect. Everything. All the placements, all the colouring, even on other people's work--- it had to be perfect. I raved about it to anyone who'd listen, and once, I was talking to Frank Iero and he just told me straight-up “I haven't heard you like this since the album.” [Takes drag of cigarette] And that shut me up, for a while.

[He shakes his head, moving on] Mikey's show turned out beautifully, but in this one, the children, I wanted it to be _joyful._ And silly. A whole bunch of mixed mediums just sort of thrown together to make something wonderful, new. And I definitely wanted to still work hard on it, but have it not be nearly as stressful.

_-As the first show?_

Exactly. As Mikey’s show. There wasn't that pressure there, that everything had to be perfect, or intentionally imperfect; it was a much freer sort of show. And I'm really proud of it, for that reason.

_-All of the works in it were yours that time._

Yeah, they were.

_-And in your third exhibition, it's coming up this next month?_

Yes it is.  
  
_-_ _W_ _hat can you share about that?_  
  
\---Ummmm... [Way laughs] That’s a good question! My agent might have something to say about that. Um, it's a public showing, with work from a multitude of artists I was lucky enough to collaborate with, multimedia, and it's going to be in Los Angeles on the fifth until the fourteenth _._ It took about two years two make and put together, and... I'm really proud of it. [Way smiles.]  
  
_-What's it about?_  
  
I can't quite tell you that. [Laughs] Uh well it's about... life, I would say. There is, um, there is an element of cops and robbers to it, kind of, but overall it's really positive expression. Life and family. Kids and brothers and non-blood family and everybody else you really just… really just love.  
  
_-That’s a good place to base something on._  
  
I'm really excited about it. I've worked out the lighting and everything with a technician already, the end result is going to be very atmospheric and evoke a, a certain feeling in the visitors, I hope.  
  
_-Can you tell us what your favourite work is?_

My favourite work from the new show is definitely this compilation sculpture called 'Kids from Yesterday'. I say compilation sculpture because how I built it was I just gathered up a bunch of old things--- childhood things, I mean, from my mom's attic, and I asked the guys’—my old band, I mean-- to send me some stuff from their moms' attics and they did, just a bunch of like elementary class pictures and old-school game cartridges and a few old, broken kids' toys-- Ray Toro sent in a stuffed Charmander. And I made them into silhouettes when the light shines a certain way. An adult, you know? That’s the point, that we're the adults now, but all this stuff that happened still shapes us. Literally.  
  
_-If I can ask, did you use any of your brother’s things in that sculpture?_

No, that’s a good question. Well it was important to me, like, in his show I was trying to make a collective memory of him as himself, as it were... but he was also part of other stuff, you know? He was part of our band, and he was part of all of our lives, and I felt like it was really important to remember that and to express it. So yeah, definitely. I put his first bass, and one of his, uh. His old sweaters from when we were both really small.  
  


_-That sounds very exciting, I hope it goes well._

Thank you.

  
_-So, along with your family and these exhibitions, you've also been working on comics?_  
  
Yes! I have, two of them published through Dark Horse. And a third one coming out, soon, hopefuly. [Laughs] If it doesn’t get caught in dev hell. That part might be some of what you'll need to cut, we don’t know when it’ll be done yet.  
  
_-Surely it's not that much of a surprise, though? The first two were very successful-- you got a Eisner in 2012._  
  
[Pleased] Yeah. Yeah, that was a great night. My comics had been taking a backseat to-- everything else, but. Well. It was funny, actually, I worked at Cartoon Network for a long time when I was young, and I went to SVA before that, I just always thought I was going to be an artist. But then My Chem took off and it never had any space-- I’d had the idea for “Apocalypse Suite” when the band was touring Revenge. It was amazing to finally put it down, like, into a form that people could see. And the recognization was amazing to have, of course. I’m super honoured to have the chance to work with Gabriel Ba. And another comics artist, Becky Cloonan, she’s wonderful, she collaborated with me on this next installation show in LA and her work is fantastic. I’m really happy with how it fits in with the rhythm of the show. We’re discussing maybe collaborating on an actual book some time in the future. You might need to cut that out, too, sorry.  
  


_-It’s fine. If I was going to bring it full circle, if you don’t mind, just we’re almost out of time here--_  
  
[Way waves his hand] No problem.  
  
_-If I’m going to bring it full circle, you have interesting dedications in both the published comics and the exhibitions’ press material, could you talk about that? We, um, we brought some references if you wanted to refresh anything_.

[Interviewer hands Way a trade paperback of ‘Umbrella Academy’, and an off-orange pamphlet, almost candlelight colour, “DISENCHANTED” written across the upper section in typewriter font.]  
  
[Way nods, looking down at them. He sets the trades on his lap and holds the pamphlet with the ends of his fingers, using both hands.] Jesus, I haven’t look at this in a while. Oh, thanks--  
[Way takes the last pamphlet the interwviewer passes him, covered with bright swirls and geometric dark shapes intersecting each other; no visible title]

Wow. When I’m working, or with my work, I mean, I try and focus on the next thing without looking back too much, so this is... [He opens the zig-zag bubble pamphlet and studies it] Wow. _  
_ [He sets the pamphlet down and then opens the other. He pauses on it, keeping the same delicate hold.]  
_  
__-… if it’s--_  
  
No, no, it’s fine. [Way continues to hold the pamphlet but looks up.]

I don’t really have anything more to say about them. I try to let the art speak for itself, and these— even with just the pamphlets, they’re all completed work, I don’t have much else to add.  
  
_-_ _Understandable. Understandable. Could, uh, could_ _you read them_ _out loud_ _maybe?_ _  
_

[Way shrugs, sitting up straight. He shuffles the book and the pamphlets.]

“Apocalypse Suite; to my wife and family, for being my umbrellas.”  
[Shift.] “Pink Galaxy Zero; For everyone who inspired it and lives so close to the sky.”

[shifts. Way pauses for a second, smiling a little.] “Disenchanted; every Saturday morning without end, Mikey Way.”

_-Thank you very much, Gerard._  
  
Oh, thank you for talking with me.  
  


_[_ _Press stop.]_

_-_

**Author's Note:**

> “For my brother Mikey, and all the Saturdays spent reading comics, firing rayguns and saving the world.” -Gerard's 'Umbrella Academy: Dallas' dedication.


End file.
